The Hardest Players to Rank for Fantasy Football in 2024

Even the experts can struggle during their draft evaluations. We asked six analysts to reveal which player was the toughest to rank for the 2024 fantasy football season.

I have a hard time ranking DJ Moore. On one hand, he was a star player last year and was a top-five fantasy receiver when Justin Fields was his quarterback. On the other hand, he shares targets with Keenan Allen and Rome Odunze for a rookie QB in a franchise that has never produced a 4,000-yard, 30-TD passer.

Caleb Williams could be be an instant star. Allen has an injury history and is 32 years old. Odunze is a rookie with an offensive coordinator who sidelined Jackson Smith-Njigba last year. There is certainly a bull case for Moore, who produced an NFL-high 45.5% first-read target share on third/fourth downs last year.

But Williams is a rookie who showed flaws as a prospect last year and has no ties to Moore. Allen remains a target hog, even at his advanced age, and trails Moore in the aforementioned first-read target share stat. Odunze was a top 10 pick and could be an instant star.

Moore has only averaged 4.8 touchdowns over his career, so I can’t quite accept his ECR as one of the top 20 WRs in half-PPR scoring, but he clearly has a wide range of results. — Dalton Del Don

Ranking Tony Pollard was a battle of wills for me. I want to approach Pollard with a fresh set of eyes and could excuse his lackluster production as a byproduct of last year’s injury, but it’s hard to trust him. He thrived on efficiency when playing opposite Ezekiel Elliott, but Pollard flopped as a lead back. His yards per carry dropped from 5.22 to 3.99 and, despite the significant increase in total touches, Pollard’s total touchdowns were cut in half.

The Cowboys provided plenty of red zone opportunities, but Pollard simply couldn’t capitalize on them. In 2023, Pollard was second in attempts inside the 20 as a running back with 57 total attempts, scoring just four touchdowns. By comparison, David Montgomery had 51 red zone attempts, resulting in 10 touchdowns. Pollard was actually the least effective lead back in the red zone.

(2024 Fantasy Draft Rankings: QB’s | RB’s | WR’s | TE’s | D/ST | Shovels)

To make matters worse, Pollard is technically not the lead back. Pollard and Tyjae Spears are co-starters on the Titans’ depth chart. A split backfield could help Pollard return to the running back we so desperately wanted to draft after the 2022 season, but it’s tough to make that leap of faith.— Tera Roberts

How do you rank De’Von Achane?

Achane was one of the most selected players on fantasy championship teams last season. That makes sense when you consider that he averaged a career-high 7.7 yards per touch on his 130 touches as a rookie.

Not only that, but he also ranked second in broken tackle rate and first in explosive run rate as a rookie. His 4.32 speed was a perfect fit for this Dolphins offense.

What’s going on now?

Well, now Achane is entering the second round of the draft. This higher cost makes us take a closer look at his deficiencies. Achane was either on the injury list or out for 65% of his games last season. He dealt with four different injuries as a rookie. His smaller frame at 188 pounds entering the league was a concern and may have contributed to his more injuries in his first year.

Achane has claimed to have put on muscle this offseason, but the question is how much and is it enough to go up against 300+ pound defensive linemen in Year 2? This makes Achane a tough rank for me. — Salt Vetri

How should we rank the Buffalo Bills wide receivers?

I can understand why the Bills might have just painted their receiver room in the offseason, given how Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis slumped in the second half. But we’re left with an unusual collection of talent, and ranking them is a challenge. Of course, any time you can solve a vague fantasy room, there’s profit to be had — especially when a likely winner gets to team up with a star quarterback like Josh Allen.

Khalil Shakir is the only receiver on this list who has caught a game pass from both Allen and Shakir (10-75-2 through two games). That’s something. Keon Coleman enters the mix as a polarizing rookie prospect, a former basketball player who has shown an ability to make contested catches. Curtis Samuel is something of a veteran player entering his eighth NFL season, but when he was linked to OC Joe Brady by the Panthers in 2020, .

The early market is cool for these players, (and that’s how it is ). But it’s the uncertainty of the situation that’s driving that data; it’s not a lack of talent. Even if there’s no superstar wideout on this list, at least one of these players is likely to provide a big return on investment. No one ever goes broke making money.

(And yes, if your answer to the Buffalo receiving contest is “draft tight end Dalton Kincaid instead,” I won’t tell you you’re wrong.) — Scott Pianowski

Zamir White is a challenging tier for me. He profiles as the typical dead zone running back you want to avoid, a trap that even the most astute fantasy player falls into every few seasons. At the same time, I can’t shake the nagging feeling in my head that Zamir could be this year’s Rachaad White, a young back who ends up to beat the dead zone.

White has touched the ball 93 times in the Raiders’ last four games as the starting back in relief of Josh Jacobs. He has been electric during that span, averaging 4.7 yards per carry.

However, I have a hard time with how script-accurate the Raiders have been in that span. The team went 3-1, including a 63-21 blowout win over the Chargers and a defensively dominated win over Kansas City. I’m not sure I believe the Raiders can repeat those scripts for an entire season, especially with a troubled quarterback duo at the helm.

I also don’t have confidence that White will have a dominant hold on passing down work, which is why Rachaad White was able to keep his fantasy outlook intact last season. If White loses receiving work to Ameer Abdullah or even rookie Dylan Laube, he won’t have a reliably projectable floor.

If the Raiders can replicate their defensive success from last season, White leads the team in carries and the quarterback situation isn’t embarrassing, I can see the RB returning value at ADP. But that’s a lot of ifs and we know how players in this range have burned us before. I don’t think my final rankings in late August will reflect a strong stance on White as a fade or buy in his tier of running backs. — Matt Harmon

The hardest players to rank in fantasy (in all sports) are always the guys who clearly have the talent and team environment needed to erase a conservative preseason projection. For me, Christian Watson is one of those guys this year.

On one hand, he entered the league as a developmental receiver and his first two seasons have been plagued by various mistakes, big and small, and he has played just 23 games in two years due to persistent hamstring injuries.

On the other hand, when Watson is on the field and fully healthy, he often looks like an unstoppable super being. He almost always finds the end zone when he’s not getting hit. Watson is 6’3″ with 4.36 speed and an insane leaping ability, so he’s athletically different than anyone else in Green Bay’s receiving room.

But on the other On the other hand, the Packers have perhaps the deepest receiver group in the NFL right now. It’s a team loaded with playmakers, all of whom earn respectable target shares. Watson isn’t even the first Green Bay receiver to go off the board in terms of ADP. Last season, no player on the team saw more than 96 targets, and we could be headed for a similar opportunity distribution in 2024.

That is, unless Watson has legitimately solved his hamstring problems in the off-seasonwhich he seems to believe has happened. If we get an improved and fully operational version of this man in the coming year, he will absolutely destroy his draft price and humiliate those of us who have been assessing him as anything other than a rising star. — Andy Behrens